Jump to content

Live recording, vocal and piano


Jeff Wexler

Recommended Posts

I'm actually with the director on this--having it happen live does make a diff in performance, and if the result isn't the world's greatest piano /vocal recording, well that wasn't the intention anyhow.  It's a movie, not a record or CD, right?   I think doing the full platter--speaker+earbug, boom mic + lav will give your posties what they need to make the scene work.  And if they ultimately decide it didn't work out well they can always ADR.

 

philp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 71
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

use a directional lav for wireless---the director must have loved Les Miserables, but he doesn't realize this is a different set-up.----I assume this is a oner or you have to use a metronome for the piano player.

 

                                                                    J.D.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Early in the read I was thinking ... what do you mean muted? with the lid up , down? " Closed " ok. pianos sound like crap closed, would not sound like the sample ... my 2 cent's

For monitor speaker placement I'd suggest flying overhead off axis the shotgun.

 

mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Early in the read I was thinking ... what do you mean muted? with the lid up , down? " Closed " ok. pianos sound like crap closed, would not sound like the sample ... my 2 cent's

For monitor speaker placement I'd suggest flying overhead off axis the shotgun.

 

mike

Muted inside (felt treatment to hammers, strings, etc.) so that the actress, who does not play piano, can "play" without the baby grand making any sound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Muted inside (felt treatment to hammers, strings, etc.) so that the actress, who does not play piano, can "play" without the baby grand making any sound.

You could bring in a piano tech and have them add a temporary stop rail to the hammers so they won't strike the strings at all, creating little to no sounds at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One idea:

Have the keyboard player play a midi controller keyboard via a DAW, such as Logic or Pro Tools. Load a sampled Grand Piano (both DAWs mentioned come with decent sounding ones) and route the output via interface/sound-card to a powered speaker for the actress to hear the piano. Record the MIDI. This way the right piano sound, perfectly clean, can be picked later. An added benefit is that any timing / small mistakes (in an otherwise good take) can be adjusted -after the fact-.

+1 for Lav on actress 

+1 for cutting low end of the piano coming out of the speaker.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I absolutely agree with a lo-fi, low volume playback.  I've done it in a pinch with no warning from production.  We had a pianist play a "circled take" which I recorded properly, and we simultaneously recorded it with an iPhone in Voice Memo mode.  Really.  For playback, we set the phone on the piano, out of frame, low volume.  The actress mimed the piano, and I recorded her vocals.  Worked like a charm! When it aired I was quite happy, well, nearly shocked, with the result.  

 

Since your application is live, I might suggest that the actor and your pianist maintain a line of sight to each other.  They can read each other's subtle cues this way, you know, like actual musicians!  If the set doesn't allow a physical line of sight, you could involve the camera dept to provide reference feeds.  I am imagining your actor being able to see two monitors out of frame with a medium shot of your pianist.  Almost as if they were prompter feeds.  It could be a fun day!  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Jeff

Does having a real MIDI controlled piano played remotely by your actual performer make any sense? 

It sure will sound like a real piano.  You can mic it properly for it's sound and get your singer on the boom.  I haven't used one in over a decade and am not sure about latency or about how well it would track a remote keyboard but what I recall about the Yamaha Disklavier makes me think it could work for you.

 

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/keyboards/disklaviers/

 

 

Cheers,

Brent Calkin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems to me that we are starting to over think it now. JW knows what to do, fulfill the Directors demand. Will it work? Things do have a way of working out. Stay tuned.

CrewC

Yeah, no doubt  :D

I think there's a tendency amongst all of us to jump to the conclusion that things need to be "perfect" sound wise. If the scene called for it to be a featured song, like a music video, surely the director would want it treated it as such and want to go about it accordingly. We do not know what the scene really is. Could be a 3 second cut of another character walking by/into the room and the piano thing is in the background... perhaps it's not even supposed to be a good performance, maybe the character is a hack and sings off key as part of the story...?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is another way to do this, by using a Yamaha Disklavier MIDI-controlled piano. They do a nice baby grand and you can either send it a pre-programmed MIDI sequence or have a remote MIDI keyboard "play" the piano via a MIDI cable from out of shot.

I've used these in theatre shows a couple of times with excellent results. Hire costs shouldn't be that great and the results will be a lot better than the digital piano/loudspeaker version.

Regards,

John

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good suggestion and I have used Disklavier "self-playing" pianos before, but in this scene, the actress is "playing" a true baby grand on the set. It has been muted and we're never making any attempt to see her hands playing the piano. We still need to solve the problem of playing through a speaker or a silent earpiece. It's all going to work out, I'm sure, I would just like them to make some decisions sooner rather than later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, no, for several reasons: for one, the piano lid is closed, also, any speaker small enough to hide inside the piano would not have sufficient fidelity to honestly produce the right sound.

 

Maybe, maybe not. I seem to recall that some piano company made an electric concert grand piano years ago. Quick 'net search turns the Yamaha CP70B. IIRC it will take a MIDI input, or perhaps someone modified one to take a MIDI input, I just don't remember. Anyway, something like this might be a place to start -- so that you end up with a sound that originates with the piano on stage, so that the room acoustics are believable, but that is still played by a remote keyboard. But most important, it sounds like a real piano, especially in the lower registers. No single monitor speaker is going to achieve that, no matter where you place it. But this might.

 

Why would you want to do this? So that you could mic it like you would an actual concert performance. Instead of trying to swim against the current and isolate the singer and the piano and mix them together later, just go ahead and record it stereo like the live performance it actually is, mixed in the field. That at least has the advantage that the producers / director / actor can listen to it in the field and determine if they need that extra take or not. They want it "real"? This is a way to give them what they want maybe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh hey Jeff,

 

i didn't realise a silent earpiece was an option! If that is the case you should be able to get a really good live recording.

Well, silent earpiece is only an option if I can convince them that it is the right way to do it! Doing it with an earpiece solves any and all potential problems, givers them all the flexibility in the world to put the scene together properly, but I'm still having a problem convincing them of all these things (and few allies on board because there is no one else in post on the movie at this point --- no music coordinator, no music editor, no post sound people). The picture editor, a really good guy and an old friend, understands this completely and he is confident that we will ultimately be able to do the scene properly (earpiece) on the day (which doesn't shoot until late in March).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...